WWYD? School Open House vs. Airline Flight & fees

[AnnieW625]

DD1 is in kindergarten, and her school open house is next Wednesday. We have to go out of town for my grandma's funeral so I booked our flights yesterday and completely forgot that DD1's open house is from 5:30 to 8:30 pm on Wednesday the 1st. There are only three flights a day from my parents airport to our home airport so because we aren't really morning people (if we don't have to be) I booked the 7 pm flight home, plus I thought an extra day to help my mom might be nice. Jet Blue has a new policy (?, maybe it's not new, but I just didn't know about it) that if you need to change the flights within 24 hrs. of booking (as long as the flight booked is 7 days in advance) that you don't have to pay the change fee even on non refundable flights so I am in that time period, but now the coming home flight at 9 am is $149 so $59 more than the $90 we paid for it. Long story shorter I could have changed last night for no additional fare fee, and no change fee :hopmad:.

We can currently change to the Tuesday night flight which also leaves at 7 pm, but the funeral is at 11 am in Oakland, which with traffic is about 2 hours from the airport. The funeral is Catholic and will last about an hour, the burial is 30 minutes away so I am planning that will start an hour to 90 minutes later which would put that over at 2 pm. It could take 2 hours to get to the airport if we leave the area later than 2pm. I assume that the reception will be at my Grandma or Aunt's home in Oakland, so if we did this flight we'd probably have to miss the entire reception, which would just feel so incomplete to me seeing that is my Grandma and all.

DD1 was incredibly crushed last night when I told her we would miss open house. The kids have been talking about this and doing special projects and such and I can't believe I completely forgot about it. I even told her when we take her to school on Thursday it will still be up. This morning she was a bit more understanding, but still I can't believe I made this mistake.

WWYD?

A. all of us leave Tuesday night at 7 pm.
B. Just one parent and DD1 leave Tuesday night at 7 pm
C. Keep the original flights and all leave at 7 pm on Wednesday
D. Pay the higher ticket fees, even Kindergarten open house is a memory (I don't remember mine, but whatever)

(poll coming)

[dogmom]

Can you go in and see the projects some other time? Make a special volunteer visit to the class?

[wellyes]

Crap, I voted A but meant to vote C.

I am sorry you will miss the event, but a grandma's funeral is a big deal. I'd just go. It is important.

[khalloc]

My daughter's Kindergarten open house was nothing special. You just got to walk around and meet people. It was crowded. I think you should just skip it. You probably wont miss much.

[TwinFoxes]

OP, so it's $200 more for the four of you? I'd probably do the Wednesday option, but $200 is a lot of money.

Southwest into Oakland won't work? Just trying to think of options.

BTW, Jet Blue's "new policy" is actually the result of new federal rules on booking air travel. It applies to all airlines now. It also includes the fact that all fees/taxes must now be included in the ticket price up front. Is it possible you'll be paying the same price, but now all of the taxes/fees are included so it looks more expensive? I think the rules may have taken effect today, but I'm not positive. I heard about it last night.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/new-rules-for-booking-air-travel/

[chozen]

i voted pay the extra fee and leave wed. morn, $200.00 is alot of money but i still would not hesitate to pay it, its an easy solution.

[baileygirl]

I wouldn't have a problem missing the K open house. Would some other options be them driving up after the open house (and using the tickets for a later date) or dh and dd1 not going to the funeral (I understand this may not be an option).

[stefani]

My vote will be not worry about the open house. You can go to school with her the next day and ask the teacher for time where DD to show you her stuff.

[KathyN115]

My vote will be not worry about the open house. You can go to school with her the next day and ask the teacher for time where DD to show you her stuff.

Does your DD go with you to the open house? Because for my DD's, I went alone, spoke with her teacher for about 3.3 minutes, looked at some projects, chatted with a few parents, and was on my way. Definitely don't worry about skipping it, your Grandmas funeral is much more important to YOU and your family. You should not have to rush and worry about missing your plane. DD will have many more open houses in her life, and will never remember this one.

I am so sorry for your loss. :hug:

[AnnieW625]

Thank you all for your input. I talked to DH again and we agreed to keep the original flights.

I was only going to go by myself, but then when I saw that it was going to be $250-$300 to fly up on Sunday or Monday morning and then come home on Wednesday if I flew either Jet Blue (Long Beach) or Southwest (LAX or OC). For Oakland it would have been about $170 so much more reasonable, but then I would have had to spend the night in a hotel in Oakland, so over $250 again. So when I saw that it was only $148 per person round trip (actually bought a seat for DD2 as the plane was pretty booked!) to go from LB to Sacramento by leaving on Saturday it seemed really foolish of me to go by myself so DH and I decided we should all go. My parents said they would pay for our tickets too so that was nice (although I will pay for DD2's seat since she is technically still free and I just bought her a seat as a convenience for us).

Open House is an everyone attends event. The non kid open house meeting thing is in the fall before school starts or the first week of school. I am still getting used to the idea of Open House being soo early in the school year, when I was in school it was always in late April or May, but it's Catholic Schools Week in our diocese next week hence the Open House in February!